County Galway
Basilico, Oranmore, County Galway: Paolo Sabatini and Fabio Mulas have their own farm, just north of Galway, supplying ingredients straight into their elegant Italian restaurant. Short of heading off to eat in an osteria in a Tuscan hill village, you can’t get a shorter supply line of top-class ingredients than those prepared in the Basilico kitchen, and it lifts the elegant cooking which distinguishes this elegant restaurant to the stars: an Italian restaurant with its own home-grown tomatoes, bring it on! The pasta and seafood cookery is as good as it gets, the vegetable cookery is subtle and apposite, and the wines are top-notch. Nice rooms in the hotel seal the deal.
Galway City
Sorcha Molloy’s lovely Heron's Rest is as close to the River Corrib as you can get whilst still keeping your feet dry. It’s the perfect city break destination, both B&B and Town House, and Ms Molly’s breakfasts are the stuff of legend - and you won’t break sweat then walking the short distances to Galway’s most quixotic places to eat.
Another restaurant with a very short supply line is Dela, in the West End of town, where you will find some of the most warming, welcoming food and service in the city. Joe and Margaret have the ingredients of their own organic farm to work with, and they simply let them shine in uncontrived, vivacious dishes. Service is Galway good, which is to say that it is as good as it gets.
First photo, Basilico, second photo Dela.
